In anticipation of next week's RSA show, IDG News Service's Keith Shaw chatted with Kevin Conklin of Prelert and Elad Yoran of Vaultive about the security trends they expect for 2014. The discussion was captured in the video below.

Of course, the NSA looms large over the show. Both Conklin and Yoran agreed that those who are boycotting the show to protest RSA's involvement with the NSA have a point and the question should be asked: Is this level of surveillance by both the government and by businesses appropriate?

NSA aside, the discussion focused on two predicted trends for the show: machine learning and cloud encryption. The former is essentially the application of big data analytics to security. It's a big deal because it means data isn't restricted to forensic (that is, after the fact) use. Rather, if machines can see myriad patterns in vast swaths of data, they can also find security events in real time and help stymie them as they occur.

Cloud encryption, meanwhile, means that users, not cloud providers, hold the encryption keys for their data. Besides putting users in control of their data security, these encryption techniques also allow for data that is currently in use to remain encrypted, as opposed to the old models of encryption only applying to data at rest or in transit.